LONGARM AND THE SHIVAREE RIDERS
By Tabor Evans
Jove Books New York Copyright (C) 1995 by Jove Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
ISBN: 0-515-11730-7
Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
Printing history Jove edition / October 1995
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
DON’T MISS THESE ALLACTION WESTERN SERIES FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him … the Gunsmith. LONGARM by Tabor Evans The popular long-running series about U.S. Deputy Marshal Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice. SLOCUM by Jake Logan Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel. McMASTERS by Lee Morgan The blazing new series from the creators of Longarm. When McMasters shoots, he shoots to kill. To his enemies, he is the most dangerous man they have ever known.
Chapter 1
Custis Long dipped his chin and cupped his hands, shielding the flare of the lucifer flame from the breeze and dropping the tip of his slender cheroot to the fire. He concentrated on lighting the cigar and quite honestly was not paying enough attention to his surroundings as he stepped off the curb to cross Colfax Avenue in Denver’s busy government district.
He damn near walked into the side of a passing coach. That was bad enough. But what was infinitely worse—worse considering the fact that the coach did miss him, if only by inches—was that the back right wheel of the rig dropped into a pothole at just that same moment. And at this early springtime of year every pothole for miles around was filled with mud and melt and mess. Brown, viscous, sloppy stuff that looked like shit. And indeed might have been. Some of it anyway.
Predictably, the splatter of brown goo sprayed quite perfectly onto Longarm’s trousers from mid-shin downward, coating cloth and boots alike with cold, slimy muck.
“Damn you,” he shouted as he hopped backward too late, the heel of his left boot catching on the curb and almost sending him flying onto the sidewalk on his butt.
“Dammit,” he blurted again, this time glaring at the back end of the light coach.
The vehicle, oddly, came to a hurried stop and the driver tugged at the mouths of the pair of handsomely matched grays pulling the rig. They bowed their necks prettily and, with quick, mincing steps, backed the coach in a perfectly straight line until it was once again beside Longarm. But at a standstill this time.
For a moment Longarm thought perhaps the driver of the vehicle wanted a brawl. But hell, he hadn’t yelled out anything personal. Just an involuntary yelp of complaint or two. That’s all it had been.
Then he smiled and realized it was not the driver’s idea to come back.
A woman—a downright handsome woman at that—was peering out the coach window at him. Closely. As if inspecting him.
“You,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ve gotten your pant legs filthy, haven’t I?”
“The mud did, yes,” he agreed.
“But it was my fault, was it not?”
“Was it now?” He smiled. Couldn’t much help smiling.
This was one mighty fine-looking female. She was no youngster—now that was true. Forty, he guessed. Or even a few years older than that. But well maintained. She was wearing makeup although so skillfully applied it was not at all obvious. Just a trace here and a brush-stroke there to emphasize the good features nature already gave her. And as well to minimize the wear and tear the years had provided. Nice though. Altogether nice. A hairstyle that likely cost enough to feed a workingman’s family for a month and a half. A dress—he could only see her from the shoulders upward but did not need to examine the whole to realize the quality of what was before him—that was elegant and expensive. The figure contained within that dress he could only guess at, but the face was fine enough. High cheekbones. Full lips. Large, expressive eyes. And a long, slim, elegant neck.
Prime, he judged. Damn sure prime female. Rich and beautiful and therefore almost certainly married. Nevertheless a man couldn’t deny the obvious. And the obvious was that this here was quite a woman.
And she in her turn seemed to be busy giving him a very similar assessment, her gaze roving boldly up and down him as he stood there beside her coach.
Well, he wasn’t ashamed of what she saw. Wasn’t all that impressed by it either if the truth be known, but more than a few women claimed to like what they saw when they looked at him. And if he did not completely understand their reaction, he certainly was not inclined to object to it.
A tall man, Custis Long stood some inches over six feet. He was possessed of wide, powerful shoulders but with a narrow waist and the washboard belly of the longtime horseman. He had a rugged, almost craggy face deeply tanned by years of exposure to wind and weather, and there were deep furrows spread out from the corners of his brown eyes.
He was, in fact, something of a study in brown. Brown tanned flesh, brown hair, a large but tidily groomed brown mustache, low crowned brown Stetson hat, brown tweed coat and brown corduroy trousers—spattered at the moment with brown mud—and a light-brown calfskin vest across the front of which dangled a gold watch chain.
His cavalry boots, on the other hand, were black, as was the gun belt that held a double-action, .44-40 caliber Colt’s patent revolver in a cross-draw rig high on his belly just to the left of his middle.
There was a look of quiet competence about him. Generally, his appearance and bearing allowed other men to admire him without jealousy while women tended often to become moist and weak-kneed in his company.
And quite frankly he would not mind at all if this most handsome blonde woman felt that self-same way.
With that in mind he touched the brim of his hat and moved a step closer to the coach that had only moments earlier fouled both his trousers and his mood. The mud might still be on his britches, but his mood was right sunny again, thank you. He smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“Do you want me to pay you for the damage done?” the woman asked.
Longarm nodded solemnly. “Sounds like a fine idea.”
“How much do you want then?”
“Oh, ‘bout four hours,” he mused aloud, pursing his lips and staring off toward the sky as if in deep thought. After a bit he nodded in affirmation and said, “Yeah, I’d say four hours should do it. Or a bit longer. What do you think?”
“Four hours?”
“O’ your time. Over dinner mayhaps. That sound fair t’ you, ma’am?”
She laughed, crows-feet showing beside her eyes and mouth when she did so but the genuineness of her pleasure negating that and making her all the prettier when she laughed. “Are you asking me to dinner, sir? And we not even knowing one another?”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s pretty much what I’m doing, all right.”
“I don’t even know your name. Nor you mine.”
He grinned. “I don’t know how you feel about it, but that kind adds t’ my interest in the deal. Beautiful lady o’ mystery, appearing outa nowhere an’ disappearing just like she came. Even if you agree t’ pay what I demand I won’t know will you actually show up or not. Not until tonight at, say, eight o’clock?”